


Stay Together

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [56]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Because nobody really wants to leave.





	Stay Together

**Author's Note:**

> this counts as the "everybody loves Beau" that i promised weeks ago  
> also this fic marks two months of daily fics!

Beau is the fiercest of them. And that’s quite a statement, because Molly thinks that they’re all fierce, in their own ways. Molly, traditionally, a whirlwind of strategy and swords he swings, perfect and brutal and if he could aim from a distance he’d make an excellent sharpshooter. Precision is Molly and Beau’s shared forté, the perfect place to press to incapacitate.

It’s impossible to say that the others aren’t fierce, either, Molly has seen Caleb when Nott has been hurt and although it throws Caleb back into the drift of his memories, it’s terrifying and destructive.  
Molly doesn’t want Caleb to be fierce, though, if the hollow is all that remains when he is.  
Fjord and Jester are the odd cases of too friendly to seem fierce, but they are, their power is unmistakable and though Jester dances with her sickle and handaxe and magic, she shoots neat and crisp and sharp and doesn’t hesitate for even a second.  
Fjord is always prepared, could be smiling and talking amicably as he carves out your heart, he’s the kind of fierce that terrifies Molly the most. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, to get on the wrong side of. Luckily, Molly has only seen the sheep in sheep’s clothing, it’s soft, warm, and doesn’t mind when he climbs into bed with it at night.  
The sheep in sheep’s clothing is surprisingly cuddly, he’s found out.  
And Nott! Nobody that saw her could say she was anything less than ferocious, fierce in everything, nothing left unturned. Her defence and reverie of Caleb, her fighting, training, magic. Nott tackles everything with the degree of unyielding bravery and, of course, fierceness, that could usually be accustomed to an orc. But Nott doesn’t ever stop. Molly admires that in her.

 

But Beau is the fiercest of all, he draws the circle back around as she kicks hard and sends an assailant flying, gives Nott the opening to spring to her feet and shout a quick thanks before she’s off and Beau is tackled by three at once.  
It’s not the first time, and they don’t usually worry, she kicks and spins and whacks, there’s a crack as her staff meets a skull and then there’s a strangled yelp. Molly was already watching, everyone else turns in unison as Beau grabs the head of her assailant and headbutts them between the eyes, releases to let them slump away, and steps back to look down at the hilt of the sword buried so deep in her flesh that there’s three inches of bloodstained metal poking out of the other side.  
“Oh, shit.” Beau says, and blacks out.  
“Beau!” Molly hears Jester yelp and he is already moving to her, lightning speed, all bounds and jumps and springboards that Beau herself would be proud of, he runs the last few metres and leaps into a spin that looks cool and cuts his accuracy down, but ups his momentum so much so that he barely feels resistance taking off another assailant’s head. He lands over Beau in a crouch and snarls in the direction of an enemy looking their way, they back off, meet Jester’s handaxe as they do so.  
Molly throws both scimitars to one hand and kneels next to Beau, his free hand skitters through the air over her body as his brain screeches and creaks to think, he places a hand on the hilt of the sword that’s right through her and grimaces.  
“I’m so sorry.”  
And pulls and then there’s just so much blood, it’s gushing everywhere, and he drops the sword and pulls a potion from his belt, instead. He tugs, tugs, tugs at her shoulder until her head is on his knees and pulls the cork out of the bottle with his teeth, pries her mouth open with his thumb, and tips all of the shimmering red liquid down her throat. He’s had health potions before, and they sting like _fuck_ but it’ll stabilise her, he doesn’t think she’ll wake, she was too badly hurt.  
The second her  breathing stabilises, he’s on his feet. There’s someone coming toward them, Beau’s an easy target, and Mollymauk is a whirlwind of blades and fury, he barely even moves, just stabs and slices and carves and the people he kills, he doesn’t see as people at all, but as challenges, things out to hurt _his_ Beau, things out to kill her and he won’t let them.  
Jester has to set a hand on his shoulder before the blood haze fades.  
“They’re gone, Molly. You can calm down now.”  
He’s standing over Beau, crouched, and Jester goes to pick her up and he growls. She pulls back.  
Molly scoops up Beau as Caleb and Fjord approach, unease in their eyes and concern in the lines of their mouths. Nott skitters up Yasha’s shoulder a few feet away.  
“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry her?” Jester offers gently, reaching out a little, “I’m stronger than you.”  
Molly clutches Beau to his chest and snarls.  
“Mine.”  
“What if I am to support you?” Caleb steps beside Jester and meets Molly’s eyes, reaching tentatively, not for Beau, but for Molly, “You are not in the best shape. I will not touch her, only you.”  
Molly scans him, a moment, and Caleb sees his shoulders relax a little and his throat work before he manages a broken _please._  
Caleb moves to his side and wraps an arm around his waist, feels Molly lean into him almost too heavily, he suspects that Molly is more hurt than he sees but stays quiet and waits for the rest of the Nein to recollect themselves so that they can return to the tavern.

 

When they arrive back, Molly is still clutching an unconscious Beau, Caleb is still supporting his weight.  
“Here, I’ll take her to our room.” Yasha offers and reaches out for Beau, and whilst Molly doesn’t growl at her, he pulls Beau tighter to his chest and looks at her with desperate eyes.  
“Molly, come on, you have to hand her over _some time_ .” Jester rolls her eyes and sets a hand to Beau’s arm and Molly snarls and pulls and Yasha has to step between them.  
“He won’t leave her.” Caleb says, exhausted, from Molly’s side, “Not until she wakes, at least.”  
“How do you know?” Jester sets a hand to her hip and frowns, but it fades almost instantly as she remembers, and Caleb voices her thoughts.  
“Because he did the same for me, if you remember? Be- before Zadash, after the, the, ambush.”  
“Oh.” Jester says, softly, “I remember. You wouldn’t even go to sleep when I threatened you. You sat up beside him until you couldn’t stay awake.”  
Molly swallows a few times, nods, “She stays with me.”  
Fjord gives a rumble halfway between judgement and appreciation.  
“Take our bed, then.” And pulls his and Molly’s room key from his pocket, hands it to Caleb, “Better to have them both in a bed than to fuck Molly up, with those wounds.”  
Molly hadn’t even noticed the skims of lines down his face and arms where crossbow bolts had carved lines into his flesh, and his muscles were starting to scream with Beau’s weight.  
“I will stay with you.” The hand that Caleb still has on Molly’s waist squeezes, “In case you need me.”  
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Jester volunteers, frowning at Beau, and Yasha raises her hand.  
“Me too.”  
“Nott?” Caleb turns to her, she’s been quiet on Yasha’s shoulder, “You can have our room all to yourself, or stay on the floor in- in Fjord’s room.”  
Nott eyes Molly, then Yasha,  
“I won’t leave you.” She tells him, firmly, and he nods.  
“I thought as much. Let’s go, then, we could all use the rest.”  
They all make their way up the stairs.

 

Fjord and Molly’s room turns out to be far cleaner than Jester and Beau’s, with their things in neat piles on either side of a double bed. Fjord explains that they sleep side-by-side so often that a single was getting cramped.  
“Time for an upgrade.” he shrugs as he makes the bed, the others stand in a line by the wall, waiting, and as soon as Fjord steps away, Molly is moving to set Beau down oh-so gently, he pulls the covers up and over her shoulders. His own ache, and when he steps around the other side of the bed, Yasha is already there and pushes her thumbs into a certain spot, he has to bite his lip to suppress a whine.  
Jester and Nott disappear as Molly receives the quickest, firmest massage from Yasha, Caleb and Fjord strip down to the barest of presentable to sleep in, and the girls come back with arms full of pillows and blankets to bed down in.

It says a lot about them as to where they set up.  
Beau and Jester bed together, by the wall, surprisingly close to Fjord, who is right beside the bed. Nott chooses a spot by the window, under it, in fact, so that it’s shadowed from the moonlight, and the daylight, when that comes.  
Caleb gets into bed with Molly.  
Molly spends a few minutes staring at Beau, just… staring. Scared, both at the idea of losing her whilst he sleeps, and at how scared he’s found himself of losing her, because Beau is terrible, and annoying, and loud, but undeniably _his._ Molly would die for any of the Nein, Molly is in love with Fjord and Caleb, but may the Gods themselves help anyone who hurt Beau or Yasha, because Molly swears under the moonlight that he will fuck them up so badly that their spirits won’t even make it to the astral plane.  
He feels an arm across his waist and startles out of his brooding spiral, he turns, finally, away from Beau, to meet Caleb’s eyes.  
“She will be okay.” he assures, quietly, and Molly’s face pulls into the expression he gets before he starts crying, he fights the tears, and Caleb shushes and pulls closer.  
“She will.” He promises, and sets his forehead to Molly’s, “We will not let her die. We will not let any of us die. We are a team, now, Mollymauk. We are family.”  
“Family.” Molly repeats without thinking, and he blinks away the beginnings of tears to meet Caleb’s eyes. “Don’t leave.”  
“Never.” Caleb says, and finds it eerily true, because he doesn’t _want_ to leave. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to him, he deals with it the only way he knows how.  
And he kisses Molly.  
And Molly kisses him back.  
Aside from a few nicks of teeth, the kiss is sweet and warm and full only of love and reassurance, the sensations of which lull them both to sleep.

 

They wake up in the morning feeling groggy and sleepy, beside them in bed, Beau sits up and looks around at the party members scattered across the floor, and then to Molly, staring at her with veiled joy. She pulls a face at him.  
“Oh, what the fuck got me into bed with you?”  
He gives a quick bark of laughter and puts a hand to her arm, gives a quick squeeze.  
“Fuck you.” he smiles.  
“Fuck you.” She replies, and flops back down to sleep again.


End file.
